'Having seeds is already a question of politics': seed geographies and permeable bodies in Paraguay

Keywords: political ecology, agrarian studies, Latin America, feminist theory
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 67

Abstract

In this paper, I examine the multi-scalar entanglements of Paraguay’s seed geographies. Seeds are symbolically and materially situated as a flashpoint through which industrial capitalist agriculture, agroecology and bodies are mediated. As agroecology movements seek to preserve native and creole seeds and by extension a particular way of life, these practices are already shot through with capitalist relations. While not reducible to capitalist relations, it is important to examine how native/creole seeds are entangled with industrial seed production. Rather than bifurcate these variegated seed practices, I invoke the term seed geographies to begin from a premise where multiple seed geographies are already at play and shape one another. By examining the seed saving practices of a Paraguayan agroecology movement – Conamuri – as embodied, multi-scalar knowledges and practices, I argue that are they are part of a process that actively re-assembles seeds in response to perceptions about changes in the environment wrought by industrial agriculture. To acknowledge this dimension of the encounters which make seed geographies possible is to argue that agroecological knowledges are active, extemporaneous and contemporary.